It looks like the number of altcoins released is up again... https://cryptocointalk.com/forum/40-new-cryptocoins/
I think the pump-n-dump folks are trying for more than one coin per day this month :P Over the Christmas break I mined some Earthcoin for a bit. Now I've gone the lazy approach of using the auto-switching pool, Hashcows, so I don't have to switch each time an altcoin stabilizes / dies. Another such auto pool I know of is Middlecoin, but I haven't tried it. I wonder how much these auto-switching pools / people manually pool hopping contributes to altcoin difficulty going nuts.

I actually learned about 42 coin because Hashcows switched to it - seems to be bouncing between 42 coin and some "Ron Paul Coin"

__________________"The computer programmer says they should drive the car around the block and see if the tire fixes itself." [src]

I have switched over to Middlecoin for now as well since I just don't have the time to micro manage and switch all the alt coins. Plus with Middlecoin, I just get paid out in bitcoin. Could I get more doing it myself, yes I could, but the extra effort wouldn't be worth it.

__________________

"Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong."

Note the OP's post count I think the only reason they're not getting laughed out of the forum is because they're just pitching the idea and not asking for money directly.

Mining contracts for BTC already exist, although I think in most of them, the contractor provides the hardware. What'll get interesting is if some disaster happens and the mining rigs get stolen / damaged.

__________________"The computer programmer says they should drive the car around the block and see if the tire fixes itself." [src]

If you're looking for something for your CPU to do, you can consider the Computing For Good program:Computing for Good

You crunch World Community Grid (slightly more meaningful than kHash) for XRP, which can exchange for Bitcoin. I got about 3300 XRP for 3 weeks of crunching on an OC'd 2500k + 3 cores of a stock Phenom 9500. (I unfortunately had to leave team HWC, but meh it's still crunching.)

A couple notes:

At the moment the Computing For Good site does the not-so-smart thing of publicly displaying WCG usernames + their associated Ripple addresses. Consider making accounts for this giveaway only.

You can send directly to a Bitcoin address from the Ripple wallet without having to sign up for a gateway. Just use your BITCOIN address in the recipient field.

EDIT: For some reason the wallet puts a different address in the transaction log (probably the address of their exchange), but I tried with 0.01 BTC and it got to my Bitcoin wallet in about 40 minutes.

__________________"The computer programmer says they should drive the car around the block and see if the tire fixes itself." [src]